Patchwork
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: Everybody has a breaking point, and Matt Casey seems to have reached his. Now it's up to Kelly Severide to try to figure out what happened, and how to help his friend.
1. Chapter 1

Patchwork

2009-

Kelly Severide walked through the automatic doors of Lakeshore Hospital and made his way to the waiting room where he found the two guys he was looking for. Andy had sent him a text that there was bad news and Casey wasn't right, and he better get his ass over there and check it out for himself. Sure enough, Casey and Darden were still there, Casey had slunk out of his chair and parked himself against the wall, his knees were against his chest, he stared down at the floor with blank eyes. Andy sat in the chair beside him, looking straight ahead at Kelly with a helpless look on his face.

Three days ago they'd responded to a house fire, there was a family trapped inside. They'd gotten out the mother, and the father, and Casey had crashed through the front window with their 3-year-old daughter, Maria Gonzales, in tow, just before the whole house exploded into flames. The family had been taken to Lakeshore to be checked over, the parents were cleared after treatment for smoke inhalation, but it turned out that Maria had a pre-existing heart condition and was scheduled to have surgery in three days, so the doctors kept her at the hospital until the operation.

Severide cautiously made his way over to his friends and addressed the man sitting on the floor, "Casey, what's going on?"

Casey continued to stare at the floor, and Kelly wasn't sure he'd even heard him, until he suddenly blurted out, "She's dead."

"What?"

"Maria...she-"

Matt had decided to cut out for half an hour, keeping his radio on incase a call came in, and see how the little girl was doing. Andy had decided to go with him, and they'd entered the hospital just as a code was called. Casey saw people rushing and something just told him that it was Maria, he followed them, and found himself standing outside the OR where a team of doctors stood around the operating table working on the tiny child whose whole chest was spread open.

Being a firefighter, Casey had seen a lot of things that most people wouldn't be able to deal with, things nobody should ever _have_ to deal with. But the sight of the doctor sticking his bloody hand in Maria's chest to manually massage the heart to try and get it beating again, only for them to call it a few minutes later, Casey had felt like the floor was falling away from him, like _everything_ was falling away. He wasn't even aware of how he'd gotten back to the waiting room, he wasn't aware how much time had passed, what was going on, everything seemed like a blur now.

"Casey." Kelly wasn't even sure what to say, but he was trying to get Matt's attention, instead he seemed lost somewhere in a daze.

"What did I save her for?" Casey questioned. "I pulled her out of a fire so she can die on an operating table three days later...what was the point?"

"Casey-"

"I didn't save her," Casey said, ignoring the voices around him, "all I did was prolong her death."

"Casey you can't think like that," Kelly told him.

"She's dead, isn't she? It's true. No good came from my getting her out of that fire."

Kelly grabbed Casey by the wrists and tried to pull him to his feet, "Come on, Casey, let's get you up."

_Anytime_ a firefighter failed to save someone on a job, that was seen as a failure; once they got victims to the hospital, it was standard protocol to move on and not know what happened to them afterwards, not that that ever stopped anyone at 51 from inquiring about the cases that particularly stuck out to them. If they'd actually done that more often it might've turned out that a lot of calls had similar end results like this, as it was, it was rare that they ever heard of somebody they rescued dying shortly after and it _not_ being related to the fire or the accident they were in.

It was hard to lose anybody on a call, they were all hard to live with, but kids were the worst. And the younger they were, the harder they were to accept.

"Casey, this wasn't your fault."

Casey didn't respond, but Kelly could see the tears starting to well up in his eyes, and quickly spilled over and ran down his face. A choked sound escaped him and his whole body doubled over. Kelly and Andy both caught him and pulled him back upright and stood on either side of him and put their arms around him and held him as he started to break down.

"This isn't your fault, Casey, these things just happen," Kelly tried to tell him. He knew it didn't help, but it was the truth, and that was all he could offer.

After a little while they were able to get Casey out of the hospital and they headed back to 51. Severide spoke with Boden and got Casey sent home for the rest of shift to come to terms with what had happened.

* * *

2012-

"Maria...Maria..."

Casey writhed around on the hospital bed and murmured half coherently.

Kelly went over to the bed and tried to rouse Casey. "Matt...Matt, wake up."

It was an exercise in futility, and Kelly knew it, but he couldn't accept it. Casey had been going in and out of consciousness for the last two days, he was pumped full of drugs and never stayed awake long enough to realize where he was, and he hardly said anything whether he was awake or not, except for that name. That was the only consistent thing he'd said since he'd been taken to the hospital.

They'd been on a call, a house fire, a family of three, the daughter was trapped in an upstairs bedroom. The parents had already been rescued from the house, the fire was raging out of control, the stairs were gone, Casey made a judgment call and jumped out of a second story window with the 6-year-old girl clutched in his arms and partially shielded from the flames with his turnout coat. He'd hit the ground, _hard_, he was already unconscious by the time anybody got to him. Nothing had been broken, luckily, but half his body was bruised and he'd been monitored for a grade three concussion. Scans had shown no brain bleed but there was still no knowledge about the full extent of his injuries, and that couldn't be determined until he was fully conscious and could answer questions.

"Maria..." that was the only thing Casey had said since he'd been brought in, and every time he said it, he sounded terrified.

* * *

_"Fire department, call out!"_

_Casey looked around the smoke filled room and listened. There was a tiny voice crying out from somewhere, he tried following the sound and traced it to a bedroom with toys, a child sized bed, and pink walls that were steadily turning black from the fire and smoke. Casey's eyes scanned over the room and saw the closet door ajar. He threw it open and saw a girl with long brown hair in a ponytail pinned under several boxes that had fallen on her._

_"What's your name, sweetie?" Casey asked as he grabbed the boxes and flung them to the side._

_"Maria," the terrified girl answered shakily._

_"Maria, my name's Matt, I'm gonna get you out of here. Your mom and dad are safe and I'm gonna get you to them, okay?"_

_"Okay," she answered, not sounding entirely convinced._

_The last box was thrown in the corner and Casey picked the girl up in his arms. He'd been in the house less than five minutes, as he turned towards the door he saw the fire getting worse from the hall and knew they didn't have much time. He hit his radio and told Boden, "I found the girl, Chief, we're coming out."_

_In that moment the house shook and Casey thought there'd been an explosion. Over the radio he heard somebody say the stairs were gone, there were ominous sounds overhead as parts of the ceiling started to collapse, Maria was screaming. Casey went over to the window and threw it open and looked out, there was no ladder and there wasn't time to set one up._

_"Maria," he told the terrified child, "I need you to be really brave for me. Just hold on to me as tight as you can, and we're going to get out of here."_

_He felt her tiny hands gripping his suspenders and holding on with all her might._

_"Close your eyes," Casey said as he kept hold of her with one hand and drew his turnout coat over her with the other, "here we go!"_

_He charged towards the window and leapt out. Falling never took as long as you thought it would, there was no time to make sure anything was right. He plummeted straight down and as he felt his body hit the ground, he became aware of the sickening sensation of a smaller body under him. He'd crushed Maria with the weight of his own body and the 80 pounds of turnout gear on him. Then everything went black._


	2. Chapter 2

"Maria...Maria..."

"Come on, Casey, wake up."

"Maria..." the name was just past his lips and seemed to hang in the air for a second as Casey opened his eyes, and saw people standing over him. After a few seconds he was able to make out that it was the guys from 51.

"What's going on? Where am I? What happened?" he asked groggily.

"You took a header out of a second story window three days ago," Kelly answered, "and you haven't been awake too much since. How're you feeling?"

"I..." Casey felt something brushing against his arm, and looked down and saw a scraggly brown teddy bear looking at him with two shiny black eyes. "What's this?"

"That belonged to Maria Lauder."

"Who is Maria Lauder?" Casey tiredly grumbled.

"The little girl you pulled out of the fire three days ago."

Casey's eyes popped wide open at this revelation.

"My God...I didn't know what her last name was..." Casey looked at the stuffed toy locked in the crook of his arm, and something came back to him, a dream, a memory, he wasn't sure which. Jumping out of the window with Maria clutched against his side. Then hitting the ground, and feeling her tiny body trapped under him.

The things people around him were saying didn't really register, except some words that faintly entered his ear about 'Maria not needing it anymore'.

Casey felt his eyes roll back in his head and he fell back against the hospital bed.

"Casey, Casey!"

* * *

Kelly stood at the foot of the hospital bed and watched Casey. Not that there was much to watch, he'd been out cold for the past few hours and was hardly moving. Much of the same for the past few days actually. It hadn't gone unnoticed by anybody visiting Casey's room how several times he would clutch Maria's teddy bear in the crook of his arm against his side, calling out her name deliriously. In his mind he must've been reliving the jump from the window, Kelly wished Casey would wake up and stay awake long enough for them to tell him what happened.

"Maria...Maria..."

It was starting again. Kelly knew by now there wasn't any point in trying to wake Casey up, either he was too heavily sedated or his mind was just too far gone to listen, all the same he walked around to the head of the bed and stood beside his friend and stroked over the top of his head and told him, even though he knew Casey wasn't hearing him, "It's alright, Casey, it's gonna be okay."

* * *

When Casey woke up he was alone in his hospital room and found himself curled in a ball crying like a baby. The memories of everything had come flooding back to him. He'd tried to save Maria Lauder and instead he'd wound up killing her when he fell on her. He'd been a firefighter for over 10 years and in all that time he'd done nothing but try to help people, try to save people, and in trying to save a little girl he'd wound up killing her instead. That's why everybody had been keeping their distance from him, that's why there was nobody there now, nobody could stomach what he'd done, and neither could he. He was a murderer.

The door opened and Kelly stepped in, and just as he opened his mouth to say something he found Casey as he was and rushed over to the bed and knelt down beside his friend.

"What is it, Casey, what's the matter?" he nudged Matt's shoulder to get his attention.

Casey raised both hands and cupped them over his face as a particularly loud sob tore loose.

"What's wrong?" Kelly tried again.

Casey lowered his hands but wouldn't open his eyes as he told Kelly, "I didn't mean to do it."

Kelly felt lost. "Do what?"

"I didn't know it would happen."

Kelly gathered his best friend in his arms and pulled him up on his knees and asked him, "What would happen?" He looked back to the door, wondering how quick they could get a doctor in there to look at Casey. If he was delirious, there might've been brain damage from the fall after all, or an infection, or something.

"I tried to save her."

"I know that, Casey."

"I wasn't trying to hurt her."

"We know that," Kelly tried to assure him.

"I'm so sorry."

"About what?" Kelly asked.

"Maria, I failed her again."

Kelly blinked. "What do you mean again?"

"I couldn't save her three years ago, and I couldn't save her now," Casey wept, he lunged against Kelly and buried his face in the crook of Severide's neck, "I am so sorry!"

Now Kelly was officially worried.

"Casey, calm down."

"I didn't mean for this to happen," Casey said over his tears.

Kelly could tell that Casey was too upset to listen to reason, so for the time being he held his best friend in his arms and listened to his tear-filled confession.

* * *

When Casey finally calmed down, Severide went into the bathroom and quickly returned with a cold wet washrag and smoothed it over Casey's tear-streaked face and lightly pressed it over his eyes.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," Casey said, largely oblivious to the physical contact.

"Casey, that's what I've been trying to tell you," Severide said as he continued washing Matt's face, "Maria didn't die in the fall."

Casey looked up at Kelly in disbelief. "She had to, I fell right on her."

Kelly shook his head, "No, no, you didn't. You landed on your side and you were still holding onto her, she was a little banged up but the doctors released her. That's _where_ the bear came from," he nodded his head to the stuffed toy laying by the guard rail, "Maria found out you'd be staying in the hospital and she left it here with you so you wouldn't be alone."

"Are you serious?" Casey didn't dare hope, it just seemed too much.

"Casey, she's fine, you saved her life," Kelly told him.

Casey shook his head in despair, "It felt so real."

"But it's not, I'd never lie to you and you know it," Kelly said.

Casey looked up at Kelly with wide eyes and asked point blank, "And if I _did_ kill a child during a call...what would you do then, Kelly? What would you tell me?"

"Casey, you are too pumped full of drugs to think straight right now," Kelly tried to convince him, "just take it easy."

Matt looked up at him, but his eyes suddenly narrowed as his breathing got under control, and in a few minutes he was asleep again, and Kelly hoped he'd stay that way until the morning.

* * *

Casey sat in his hospital bed looking around the room, wondering where the hell the doctor was to tell him if he could be discharged. So far he hadn't seen anyone that morning except a nurse doing bed checks, and Kelly had stopped in briefly, but he'd left after a few minutes and hadn't been back since. And nobody else from 51 had been in to see him.

"Mr. Casey?"

Matt looked to the door and saw a 30-something-year-old woman cautiously stepping into the room with a little girl on her hip.

"Yes," he said uncertainly.

The woman smiled at him and explained, "I'm Rita Lauder, this is Maria. She wanted to see how you were doing."

The little girl with the brown ponytail turned her head and looked at Casey with a shy smile, she clung to her mother's arm and shoulder and looked down at the man laying in the hospital bed.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

Casey felt his mind blown, for a few seconds he couldn't even think. He quickly recovered and answered, "I'm doing fine, thank you."

"Thank you for saving my daughter," Rita told him, tears starting to form in her eyes.

"It's...just doing my job," Casey said, still feeling in awe by what was going on. His eyes shifted, and he saw the teddy bear pressed against the guard rail and grabbed for it, "Oh, I believe this belongs to you."

"No thanks, you can keep him," Maria responded as she held tight to her mother, "then you won't be lonely."

Casey felt the corners of his mouth automatically rising into a smile as he told the little girl, "That's very kind, thank you."

"You're welcome," she said with a warming smile.

* * *

2016-

Casey felt his chest rising and dropping slowly with steady even breaths, he felt a soft pillow behind his head, but the mattress under him wasn't particularly comfortable. It wasn't _his_ mattress, it wasn't _his_ bed. He tried to think where he was and where he'd fallen asleep, but he was coming up blank. Opening his eyes he saw a familiar sight of a hospital room, his guess was Chicago Med, but this wasn't one of the usual rooms he'd occupied after an accident on a call.

"Casey?"

Matt turned his head at the voice before he could even recognize it, and saw Kelly sitting in the bed next to his, dressed in a set of his pajamas, as Casey realized as he looked down, so was he.

"Kelly? What's going on?" Casey asked, feeling very nervous about what had happened he didn't remember.

Kelly swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up and went over to Casey's bed, "Do you know where you are?"

"Med?" Casey asked as he looked around at the room.

"Yeah," Kelly said, "do you remember what happened?"

Casey shook his head, "Were we in an accident? Where's the doctor?"

"Casey, calm down."

The way Kelly said it made his blood run cold. Something was wrong.

"What happened?" Casey asked as he sat up.

"Just take it easy, Casey," Kelly said as he sat on the edge of Matt's bed, "everything's going to be alright."

"What's _wrong_?" Casey demanded to know, "Why are we here?"

Casey felt something pressing against his back. He turned over and saw the sheet bunched up near the top and tossed it back and saw a white and gray furred teddy bear laying on the other side of the bed. Casey knocked it onto the floor like a hot potato and turned back towards Kelly, "What is going on? Where are..." his eyes widened in horror of realization, "this is the psyche ward."

Kelly merely nodded, looking none too pleased with this fact.

"What...what..." Casey felt like he was about to burst through the ceiling, his chest was getting tight and he felt pins and needles stabbing their way up his spine, "what's going on? Why are we here?"


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I forgot to put a note in the beginning of the story that a lot of creative license is going to be used this time, and it's going to be heavily exercised starting with this chapter. Hope you enjoy!

What happened? That was the question Kelly had been trying to find the answer to. Three days earlier he'd tried calling Casey, and only got his voicemail. He called again three more times during the day, and there was never any answer. He'd decided to head over and see if anything was wrong, it was _not_ like Casey to put him off this long.

When he pulled up at the curb he saw Casey's truck in the driveway. He'd headed into the apartment, and everything looked the same, but Casey was nowhere to be found. Kelly searched the rooms one by one, calling for Casey, and there was no response. His search ended in the bedroom, and he was just about to start panicking, when he noticed something, and he crouched down on the floor.

"Casey?"

The blonde lieutenant looked out from under his bed, and his wide eyes told Kelly that something was definitely wrong. And if he'd had any doubts about that, they were confirmed as soon as Casey spoke.

"My name is Matt Casey. Matt is short for Matthew."

Kelly felt like he'd just fallen down the rabbit hole at top speed. He looked at Casey, there was absolutely no recognition in his eyes. He didn't know who Severide was. Without much time to think about what he was going to do, Kelly tried to take command of the situation, as he did countless times on calls involving kids.

"Hey buddy, my name's Kelly, I'm a friend."

"I don't have any friends named Kelly."

Even though Severide could already tell Casey was not firing on all cylinders, he'd be lying if he said that didn't sting.

"Well you do now, you want to come out from under there?"

Casey shook his head.

"What're you doing down here?" Kelly asked.

"Hiding."

"From what?"

"I don't know."

"Lord help me," Kelly grumbled under his breath, he sincerely had no idea what he was going to do. He looked at Casey and asked him, "How long have you been down here?"

Casey shrugged, "I don't know."

Kelly tried to think.

"You hungry?"

Casey nodded.

"Okay, why don't you come out and we'll get something to eat?"

It hadn't been easy but Kelly had finally managed to get Casey to the kitchen, and he ducked out to the bathroom for a minute and called Med and asked for Dr. Charles, and very quickly, and trying not to panic, explained the situation to him.

"Do you think you can get him to the hospital?" Dr. Charles asked.

"I don't know, I can try," Kelly said.

"Okay, we'll be ready."

Kelly hung up, and returned to the kitchen and asked Casey, "You want to go with me and see a friend?"

"I thought _I_ was your friend," Casey said dejectedly.

"You are, but I've got another friend I want you to meet," Kelly told him.

Casey thought about it for a few seconds before concluding, "Okay."

* * *

As soon as they pulled into the parking lot at Med, Casey started to panic.

"What're we doing at the hospital?"

"Everything's going to be okay, buddy, trust me," Kelly told him.

He just barely managed to get Casey out of the car, actually getting him into the hospital where Dr. Charles and his staff could actually examine Casey was just about impossible. Matt had a grand mal tantrum when they tried to separate him from Kelly, screaming, crying, trying to escape, it broke Kelly's heart just to watch as Casey was forcibly restrained to a gurney to take him to an exam room. Finally he stepped in and asked Dr. Charles, "Would it be okay if I come with him?"

"That might actually be a good idea," Daniel answered, "we can probably get some information from you we can't get from Matt right now."

Kelly pushed his way to the front of Casey's line of vision and told the distraught man, "I'm right here, Matt, okay? I'm not leaving you. Everything's going to be fine. Nobody's going to hurt you, I won't let them, I promise."

Dr. Charles ordered lab work to rule out any organic cause for Casey's behavior, it was hours before the results were in, nothing there was the culprit, so Dr. Charles admitted Casey as a patient in the psyche ward until they could figure out what was going on.

That night Casey had finally fallen asleep with the help of some sedatives, and as he slept, Dr. Charles told Kelly, "This is what some psychiatrists refer to as regression in service of the ego."

"What's that mean?" Kelly asked.

"Everybody has their different theories on regression, but what it basically boils down to is when a person experiences massive stress or trauma, their subconscious sometimes takes them back to an earlier time, a potentially safer time in their life when they felt protected, and the stress can't get to them, a coping mechanism to avoid dealing with what's going on."

Kelly felt lost. "What could've happened to do this to Casey?"

"Does anything recent stick out?" Dr. Charles asked.

Kelly shook his head, "No more than usual. Is he going to be okay?"

"Treatment for regression is still largely experimental, the best bet is to work through whatever caused the episode in the first place...we'd have to get Casey to open up about what happened and I'd have to get him to talk through it."

Kelly looked at the doctor helplessly. "You think you can?"

"It won't be quick, it would take several sessions, but it's possible," the psychiatrist told him.

"Possible?" Kelly felt his heart drop. "You mean he might not get better?"

"We can't jump the gun on that, I told you it won't be quick, it won't be easy, but I think it can be done," Dr. Charles answered.

Kelly felt like the ground was about to disappear under him. "Please do, please do everything you can for him."

"We will. And we may have gotten lucky with him."

"How do you mean?" Kelly asked.

"Most regression patients I've seen revert back to an earlier time in life, somewhere between infancy and a toddler...some lose all ability to talk, some lose control of all bodily functions. Casey...from what I've seen, I'd have his regressed age pegged somewhere about 7 years old, it might be easier to work with him this way."

Kelly felt at a loss. "I don't know anything about his life back then."

"It's okay, you don't have to," Dr. Charles told him. "Matt's verbal, and under sedation he could be cooperative, it gives us a place to start."

Kelly merely nodded, but nothing made sense to him anymore. "Is it alright if I stay with him?"

Dr. Charles nodded and responded, "I really don't think he should be alone right now."

Kelly thought of something else, "Would it be okay if I left and got a change of clothes for him? He's not going to wear that gown."

"That's true," Dr. Charles said, "I don't think there's much chance of him waking up anytime soon, it should be okay."

Kelly left Med and thought about going to Casey's apartment for a change of clothes, but he didn't like the idea of being gone too long incase the drugs wore off and Matt woke up early. So he settled for swinging by his own apartment and grabbing two sets of pajamas. Casey would have something more comfortable than the hospital gown to wear, and since Kelly wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, he figured he might as well be comfortable too, and maybe it would lower Casey's defenses some and he'd feel more at ease since they'd be equals in a sense. Whatever was going on with Casey, Severide hoped that Dr. Charles could figure it out soon. He'd never seen anything like this before and it scared the hell out of him.


	4. Chapter 4

Present-

The door opened and Dr. Charles entered the room, both firemen turned and looked at him.

"Good to see you're up, Matt, how're you doing today?"

"Dr. Charles, what the hell is going on? Why am I here?" Casey wanted to know.

Daniel looked to Kelly and asked, "How long's he been like this?"

"Just since I woke up," Severide answered.

The psychiatrist turned back to Casey and asked him, "Matt, do you have any recollection of how you got here?"

"No I don't and I don't appreciate being kept in the dark," Casey answered firmly, "now _what_ is going on?"

"Well it seems that you may have suffered a nervous breakdown a couple days ago," Dr. Charles explained.

"What?"

"We've kept you here for the time being to monitor you. Can you tell me what the last thing you do remember is?"

Casey tried to think, but with this sudden fact that he had lost actual _days_ of his memory, shook him up considerably.

"I don't know...I don't know!" he was starting to panic.

Dr. Charles on the other hand didn't seem too alarmed by this answer. "Okay, it's alright, take your time, it'll come back to you."

Several horrible scenarios were racing through Casey's mind at warp drive, and he felt his chest heaving as it got hard to breathe and he felt his throat swell with tears as he started to break down in a panic, "I'm not losing my mind...I'm not going insane, am I? _Am_ I?"

Both Kelly and the psychiatrist about had to restrain Casey as Dr. Charles told him, "We've run all our tests, we ruled out any physical or biological cause for what happened...and if this was the result of some preexisting mental illness that had never been diagnosed, you likely would've started exhibiting symptoms long before now. Most people with mental illnesses start showing signs in their mid to late 20s. I think there's a perfectly rational explanation for what happened, we just haven't found it yet."

Casey didn't feel convinced by this explanation. "You think I'm crazy." He pointed to the teddy bear discarded on the floor and demanded to know, "What's _that_ doing here?"

"It's something one of our volunteers started doing, thought they might provide a service to the adult patients who don't have anybody staying with them," Dr. Charles answered.

Casey closed his eyes and dragged the flat his hand across his face as he groaned, "This can't be happening, it can't be, I can't be losing my mind."

"Casey, calm down," Severide sat on the edge of his bed and put a hand on his shoulder, "you're going to be fine."

He _hoped_ anyway. This was the first good sign he'd seen in three days that Casey actually knew who they were and where they were, but that was starting to be a short lived relief after this bombshell.

"I want to get out of here," Casey told Dr. Charles, "I want to go home."

"I understand that, but I'm not sure that's in your best interest right now," Daniel told him.

"I'm _not_ crazy, I don't want to stay here!" Casey yelled at the psychiatrist.

"Casey," Kelly tried to get him to calm down.

"Where're my clothes?" Casey asked.

"We had them tested for any organic materials that you might've gotten into that could explain your condition, unfortunately after testing they were accidentally disposed of," Dr. Charles explained.

"_What_?"

"Casey," Kelly tried again. He looked at Dr. Charles and asked him, "Would it be alright if I went home and got him a change of clothes?"

Daniel nodded, "I think it'd be alright."

"Kelly-"

"Casey, I'll be right back, everything's going to be fine," Severide assured him. "Just take it easy."

"I don't-want-to-be-here," Casey told him.

"I know-"

"Matt," Dr. Charles said, "I have to stress the importance of you staying put for the time being. Since we don't know yet what caused your breakdown, you could be susceptible to another one, and if that would happen, you would be much better off here where we're trained and prepared to deal with it than alone in your apartment, or even driving on the road."

"But," Casey looked at Kelly, and the doctor, and alternated between the two and finally realized he wasn't going to win this fight, he sighed in defeat, "I don't like this."

"I know," Dr. Charles told him, "And I apologize for the inconvenience, but we're going to do what we can to speed up your release."

* * *

"Chief, it's me," Kelly said as he drove over to Casey's apartment, "there's some progress, Casey knows who I am now and where he is, but he still doesn't know what happened. Dr. Charles wants to keep him on at the hospital and see if he can work with Casey to figure it out."

"I appreciate the update, Kelly, if there's anything we can do, feel free to let me know," Wallace told him.

"Will do, Chief," Kelly replied before hanging up.

He'd called Boden a couple hours into Casey's hospital stay to let the battalion chief know what was going on and why it was a safe bet neither of them would be coming in on next shift. He hadn't been sure how to explain the situation to Boden without Casey getting a big red mark on his performance record and possibly damning his chances of even coming back to work once he recovered, so all he'd told the chief at the time was that Casey appeared to have had suffered some kind of nervous breakdown and didn't know who Kelly was, or where he was, or who anybody else around him was. He'd also asked Boden to keep it between them until further notice, and Wallace had agreed, merely telling everybody else at 51 that both Severide and Casey were sick and would have to sit out the next shift, and he would be calling in the proper replacements for them.

Kelly pulled up at the curb and went up to the front door, realizing he'd left it unlocked when they left. He entered the apartment and looked around to see if anybody had ransacked the place while they were gone. The furniture was still there, and in its proper place, nothing seemed out of order, he made his way to the laundry room and found the overhead light on, and the light in the dryer on since the door was left open. There was a folded pile of clothes on top of the dryer and Kelly started to grab a set for Casey to wear, when he saw the door for the washer standing straight up as well. He stepped over to see if there had been anything in the machine, and as he looked down in it, he felt his eyes widen and felt his heart drop to his stomach.

* * *

Kelly returned to Med and met Dr. Charles in the corridor, he had a bag strapped over his shoulder and was carrying a bunched up towel in his arms.

"I got Casey's clothes...I found something else I needed to show you," he said. "Is there some place we can talk in private? I don't want Casey seeing this."

"Sure, we'll go to my office," Dr. Charles led the way, and closed the door behind Kelly.

"I forgot to lock up, so I was checking the place over to make sure nobody broke in and nothing was missing...the light was on in the laundry room, and the washer and dryer were open, I looked in...and I found this."

Kelly unwrapped the towel and revealed a mess of white stuffing and a pile of scraggly brown fur and two black eyes.

"What's this?" Dr. Charles asked.

"It took me a while to figure it out," Kelly said. "Casey got this from a little girl he pulled out of a fire four years ago."

"Hmm," Daniel looked it over, "apparently it wasn't made to be put in the washer."

"Do you think...I mean I know it sounds crazy..."

"Nothing sounds _crazy_, Kelly, things sound odd, they may not make sense on the surface...but they're not crazy. For every type of bizarre behavior, somewhere there's an explanation that's logical to the patient," Dr. Charles told him.

"Could _this_ have been the cause of Casey's breakdown?" Kelly wanted to know.

"Well..." Dr. Charles further examined the mutilated toy, "what is the emotional connection to this for Casey? Do you know?"

"It was one hell of a call," Kelly answered. "Casey had to jump from the second story window with the girl, he thought he crushed her to death. She gave him the teddy bear when she realized he was in the hospital alone."

"And he kept it."

"We don't exactly get a lot of mementos from this job," Kelly told him. "This one had an unexpected happy ending at least."

"Do you know where he kept it?"

Kelly wracked his brain to remember. He knew he'd seen it somewhere, where? He hadn't seen it _much_ over the years but he knew he'd seen it somewhere.

"Uh...on the dresser in his bedroom," he finally remembered.

"Not a part of the house that regularly sees a lot of dirt, but in four years' time it probably accumulated enough he thought running it through the rinse cycle wouldn't hurt," Dr. Charles said, "and instead the poor thing just fell apart."

"And so did Casey, but why?" Kelly wanted to know.

"What all can you tell me about that call?" the psychiatrist wanted to know.

Kelly tried to remember all the details, but one call out of thousands in that time span, it was hard to keep track. He did remember Casey's stint in the hospital and how even when he was unconscious he kept calling out Maria's name.

"But..." he finally remembered, "I think he was mistaking her for Maria Gonzalez."

"And who's that?"

Kelly opened his mouth to answer, then his eyes doubled in size as it all clicked. "Oh my God, that's it!"

* * *

By the second day in the psyche ward, Casey had started to adjust to his new surroundings and didn't have to be tied to the bed anymore. Kelly thought that was a small sign of improvement, but Dr. Charles had had no luck trying to get through to Matt and find out what was going on. The only thing Casey did respond to was the teddy bear Dr. Charles had brought in. In fact he'd told Severide it _was_ part of a volunteer program usually reserved for adult patients staying in the hospital alone, but he'd intercepted the volunteer when she first came in that morning, knowing it was safer than letting her come to the psychiatric ward herself to give it to Casey in person. Kelly had seen the way Casey's eyes lit up at the sight of it, and he was officially worried. This was _not_ his best friend of the last 19 years, and yet he had to keep reminding himself, it _was_. And something had happened to his friend, and that's why they were there now, to figure out what had happened and how to fix it.

"Are you sure this is going to help him?" he'd asked Dr. Charles, "Doesn't it seem kind of...I don't know...counteractive?"

"Well, the only way I can help Matt is if I can talk him through what's going on, and he's going to be more likely to talk if he feels comfortable..."

"And safe," Kelly put it together, "but are you sure it's going to work?"

"We won't know until we try, but in the meantime it could give us some insight to what we're dealing with," Dr. Charles explained.

Throughout the day Casey was seldom without the stuffed animal, and at night when they were in their beds, Severide looked over and watched as Casey closed his eyes and nuzzled his face against the teddy bear's. If he wasn't scared so senseless about what was happening to Matt and the situation wasn't so sad, it would've been downright cute. That had been the easy part of the night.

Kelly was jerked awake by somebody shaking him, he opened his eyes and saw Casey standing beside the bed looking frantic.

"Whas'it, Matt? What's wrong?" he asked as he struggled to fully wake up.

"Kelly, can I sleep with you?"

It was a strange request but it was obvious something had Casey shaken up. Kelly moved over to the edge of his bed and said, "We'll see, get in."

Casey hopped on the bed like he was worried the floor was going to reach up and grab him.

"What happened, have a nightmare?" Kelly asked, hoping he could get to the bottom of whatever it was.

He saw Casey was still clutching the teddy bear tight against him, and he heard the wheezing gasps as Casey breathed, as he tried to talk, tried to explain, "It was horrible, Kelly!"

Now Severide was fully awake and alert. "What was it?"

"They killed her, they killed her!" Casey's voice was full of panic.

"Who?" Kelly asked.

"The little girl. They cut her up and ripped her heart out."

It was one of the weirdest things Kelly had ever heard in his life, and especially given the source he found it very troubling. He had no idea what it was supposed to mean or what it might have to do with what happened to Casey.

Kelly forced himself to stay calm and remember what he was dealing with, in a soothing tone he told Casey, "That sounds scary, Matt, but it was just a nightmare, it wasn't real."

But he wasn't able to convince Casey of that. All he could do was try to calm Matt down and finally he got him to go back to sleep, clinging tightly to Kelly with one hand and clutching the teddy bear in the other.

The next day Kelly had told Dr. Charles about Casey's nightmare, but at the time he wasn't able to figure out what it meant, or what it could be connected to. Daniel had tried to talk to Casey about it and get him to open up, but the blonde man remained tight lipped about it.

"I don't want to talk about it," was about all he was willing to say on the subject.

Dr. Charles nodded, "I understand that, some dreams are scary."

Casey nodded in response though Kelly wasn't sure if it was consciously or not.

"And talking about them just makes them feel real all over again," Daniel said.

Casey continued nodding.

"But I'll let you in on a secret, Matt...once you tell people about your nightmares, they lose their power, and they're not as scary anymore. They're scarier when you try to keep it to yourself."

But, Casey still refused to budge on the issue, and since Kelly couldn't think of anything to explain the basis for Casey's nightmare, they found themselves at a standstill.

* * *

Kelly had just finished wrapping up the story about Maria Gonzalez and that whole tragedy 7 years earlier to the psychiatrist, not sure if it was actually going to help them figure out what was wrong with Casey, but hoping against all hope that it at least gave them a place to start and something to work with.

"I don't know what it all means," he helplessly admitted.

Dr. Charles merely nodded and looked again at the teddy bear that had come completely apart in the washer.

"It sounds like what we're dealing with here is a severe case of transference. It's actually more common than you think, Kelly, all the time, people shift their feelings about one person to another, sometimes they don't have anything in common, but in this case, two girls named Maria born in the same year, both of whom he saved from a house fire by jumping through the window with her, it's easy to see why he's transferring his emotions from Maria Gonzalez to Maria Lauder, or in this case, the only remaining extension he has to Maria Lauder," he gestured to the mangled toy.

Kelly looked down at the teddy bear, and he thought he knew what Dr. Charles was getting at, but he still tried to ask, "You mean..."

"Intellectually Matt knows that the girl who gave him this isn't the same girl that died on the operating table...but the trauma of witnessing Maria Gonzalez's death has clearly affected him more than the other casualties he's seen on the job as a firefighter. So it's my guess when he opened the washer and found this...it was like killing Maria all over again, the stress became too much and his mind retreated."

Severide tried to make sense of what he was hearing, and on some level it _did_ make sense, but he still had trouble accepting it.

"And now?" he asked.

"Well he seems to be fairing well now...but I do think this is a vital point to bring to his attention, if he has any memory of what happened around the time of his breakdown, we can work with him on it," Dr. Charles answered.

Kelly was skeptical. "Is there any chance seeing this again could...I don't know...trigger a relapse or something?"

"In his current settings I'd think it very unlikely, but if it does, we'll know better how to help him," Daniel answered.

* * *

"Can I go home now?" Casey asked when the two men returned to his room.

"We're working on it, Matt," Dr. Charles answered, "but first I have a question to ask you."

"What?"

Dr. Charles went over to the bed with the folded towel in his hands, and he asked Casey, "Do you recognize this?" and peeled the towel back.

Casey's eyes widened at the sight of the destroyed teddy bear.

"Oh my God," he sank back against the bed, "where'd you get that?"

"It was still in the washer," Kelly answered, not feeling proud of himself for discovering it even if it was something they needed to know.

Casey groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, "Oh my God."

"Can you tell me about this, Matt?" Dr. Charles asked.

"No, I won't," Casey sniped at the doctor. "I don't want to talk about it, just leave me alone."

Kelly and Dr. Charles exchanged a look and Daniel told him, "Alright, we can do that, I can understand this is a lot for you to take it at one time. I'll just check back in later."

Casey groaned as he covered his face with his hands. Through them he told Severide, "You too, Kelly."

Severide shook his head, "Sorry, Casey, I'm not leaving."

"What?" Casey dropped his hands and looked at him.

"I've been here with you for the last three days," Kelly told him, "I'm not leaving now."

"I don't want you here."

"Too bad, I'm staying," Kelly went back over to his own bed and sat down on it. "You want me out, you're gonna have to throw me out."

And he was banking on the hope that Casey didn't have enough fight in him right now to do it. To his relief, it seemed that Matt didn't, he made no attempt to even get up from the bed, instead he just turned away from Kelly and lay flat against the mattress.

Kelly didn't remember falling asleep, but the next thing he knew, he shot up in bed when he heard an alarm going off somewhere. Casey heard it too and sat up in the bed.

"What's that?" he asked.

Kelly jumped up from the bed and ran to the door. It was locked and he couldn't get it to budge.

"Hospital's on lockdown," he realized.

"What!?" Casey got to his feet and ran to the door. "What's going on?"

"I don't know." Kelly couldn't see anybody out in the corridor.

"Where's your phone?" Casey asked.

Kelly ran back to the nightstand by the bed and grabbed it. He tried calling the front desk to find out what was going on but he quickly found out he didn't have reception in the psychiatric ward.

"We're stuck here?" Casey asked.

"Looks like," Kelly reluctantly admitted as he put his phone down.

Casey started breathing heavily and looked like he was going to have an anxiety attack.

"Calm down, Casey," Severide told him.

"Calm down?" Casey repeated, "We don't have any idea what it is, it could be a terrorist attack or poison gas..."

"Whatever it is, they'll figure it out," Kelly tried to get Matt to calm down, "they know what they're doing."

Casey groaned again as he turned around and grabbed fistfuls of his hair, "Why couldn't they have just let me go? We'd be out of here."

"It's going to be alright, Casey, just take it easy," Severide told him.


	5. Chapter 5

An hour had passed and the building was still on lockdown. Each of the lieutenants were laying in their beds, Kelly looked over and watched Casey who seemed to be asleep. They hadn't spoken since the lockdown first started, and Casey was obviously not in any mood for conversation.

Kelly knew it wouldn't do him any good but he quietly got up from the bed and walked over to the door and peered out to see if anyone was out there. Nothing, nothing, nothing...

Somebody in a blue HazMat suit just walked by the hall. Kelly beat on the glass door and yelled for whoever it was to come over there. The figure stopped, turned at the sound and came his way.

"Tony!"

"Kelly?"

Tony stood right outside the door.

"What the hell are you doing in there, Kelly?"

"Never mind that, what the hell's going on?" Severide demanded to know.

"We're sweeping the building, suspected anthrax," Tony answered.

_"What?"_

"Ain't found anything yet, any luck it's a false alarm, but we can't open the place back up until we know for sure," Tony told him.

"Yeah yeah, I know how it works," Kelly replied, "Any idea how long it's going to be?"

Tony shook his head. "Sorry, Kelly. Just hang in there."

"It's not _me_ I'm worried about," he responded.

* * *

If Kelly had to guess, he'd bet another hour passed by when he woke up, and the hospital was still on lockdown. He was hungry, and tired of doing nothing but laying in the bed waiting for something to happen. He looked over and saw Casey still turned on his side, and he noticed that Casey had found the teddy bear Dr. Charles had given him two days ago, and as far as Severide could tell, was hugging it against him as he slept.

Something had started nagging at Kelly's mind and since he didn't have anything else to do, he let the idea fully expand itself. He supposed he'd been trying _not_ to think about it because it was a very uncomfortable subject, but he didn't feel like he had any choice anymore.

He thought about the discussion he'd had with Dr. Charles about Casey's breaking point when he found Maria's teddy bear destroyed in the washer. He wondered how long it took from that time for Casey to have his breakdown and the regression to kick in. He felt a weight on his chest as he tried to imagine all that time Casey was alone, alone and having a nervous breakdown because the stress got to be too much, and then...what actually happened when he regressed? His subconscious had taken him back to seven years old, and he was all alone, for how long? Hours? That had to be scary as hell for the poor guy. No wonder he'd been hiding under the bed when Kelly found him. He remembered though that Casey didn't look scared or upset when he got down on the floor to see him. He remembered those wide eyes that didn't recognize him, and it still haunted him. What had been going through Matt's head all that time? Dr. Charles hadn't actually gone into a lot of details about how regression worked. Did Matt remember his parents? Did he wonder where they were? Where his sister was? Or did he have no recollection of them? Was it like he was a blank slate seven year old with no family? Or did he somehow remember his dad was dead, his mom had been in prison and his sister had moved away? The same subconscious that took him back almost 30 years had to have also held on to all the information from the present time, that's why Casey had had those nightmares about Maria, the facts were still poking through and interrupting his psyche's attempted escape from them. Was that also why he had recovered his current memories and now knew where he was? Somehow that would be like Casey, even in the deepest recesses of his mind he wouldn't be able to run away from a problem, he'd have to stand and face it. But could he actually do that now?

"Casey, you awake?" he called over.

Casey wouldn't move from his current position as he responded, "No, go away, I'm insane." If anything, he only curled his body into a tighter ball as if in an attempt to shut Kelly out.

Kelly swung his legs over the side, got up and went across the room to Casey's bed and sat on the edge of it and told him, "Nobody thinks you're crazy, Matt."

"Oh no? Why not?" he replied. "It's true, isn't it?"

"I don't think you're insane, Casey," Kelly said, "I think you have seen more than your fair share of horrible things, and I think it all just finally got to be too much."

"So I went insane," Casey said defiantly.

"No...Casey, we love this job but it comes with more than a fair share of demons. I think you brain was trying to protect you from them becoming too much."

"So I went insane," Casey repeated with verbatim emphasis on the words.

"You're not insane, I don't think you're insane," Kelly told him. He sighed, and paused as he remembered that day at Lakeshore when Maria died, and he remembered how horrible Casey had looked, he hadn't even been able to stand up, and he remembered he and Andy dragging him out of there and going back to 51 long enough for Boden to take him off shift, and he shook his head. "This is all my fault. I shouldn't have had Boden send you home that day...or I should've had him take me off shift too so you wouldn't be alone. God...I never thought about what it must've been like for you that day..."

He really hadn't, and he kicked himself for it. He just assumed once Casey got home he could do whatever he had to do to mourn for the little girl he blamed himself for not saving, for only prolonging her death. They'd all done it, they all took casualties hard, kids especially, they all went home, hit the bottle to try and forget, when that didn't work screaming and eventually crying was always next. And by the next shift they had purged themselves enough to be able to come back and do their jobs. Kelly never stopped to think how differently it had been for Casey actually _seeing_ Maria die, not in a fire, not in a car crash, not waiting for the ambulance, but days later on an operating table, when she should've been safe since the house fire was so long in the past by comparison. He should've known Casey couldn't bounce back from that like he did the victims they lost in fires.

Casey wouldn't look at Kelly, instead his eyes stared straight ahead at the wall, but inside his mind was reeling as he thought back to the events of that day.

"What did Hallie say when you told her?" Kelly asked.

Hallie?

* * *

The apartment had been empty when Casey went home. Hallie's car was gone, no surprise, he barely even noticed. Somehow he dragged himself up the steps and went inside, and spent the next few hours falling completely apart. He wanted a drink, something strong, something potent that could knock him out and he wouldn't have to remember anything, but he never got to that side of the kitchen, instead he wiled away the hours pacing, pulling his hair, screaming, punching the walls until he was screaming in pain and his knuckles were bloody, finally collapsing on the floor in a ball and sobbing uncontrollably. He'd failed. He was a failure as a firefighter. Firefighters weren't supposed to fail, they were supposed to save people, and he couldn't save a 3-year-old girl. The bloody images from the operating room filled his mind and haunted him, taunting him that this was the end result of his heroics, his attempt to save that little girl from the fire that destroyed her home.

Time didn't exist anymore, nothing seemed to exist anymore, except those memories and the pain deep in his chest as he remembered. Even without the alcohol he eventually blacked out, there were periods where he woke up on the floor crying, and blacked out again, and woke up later, but only for a few minutes before he lost consciousness again.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was dark, and he could hear somebody's voice.

"Matt? Matt, are you here?" Hallie called as she came in the front door, "Why's the door o-oh my God, Matt!"

He heard her, but he didn't feel any rush to get up and answer her. He slowly planted his hands to the floor and pushed himself up.

"Oh my God, Matt, are you okay?" she asked as she rushed over to him, "What happened, was there an accident? Did somebody break in? Wha-" she looked past him and saw the bloody prints on the walls where the drywall had been knocked out, then she looked back at him and asked, "Matt, what happened?"

* * *

"What'd you tell her?" Kelly asked as he lay behind Casey on the bed, one arm wrapped around his waist, the other hand gripping Casey's shoulder. Through it all the Truck lieutenant had never turned his head to look at Kelly.

Casey sighed as he remembered, and he answered, "Part of the reason we broke up is because Hallie complained I never told her anything about my day."

"You didn't tell her?" Kelly asked in shock.

"How could I tell her? I was too ashamed. I _knew_ what she'd say, that it wasn't my fault."

"It wasn't."

"But in my head it was, and I didn't want her lying to me to try and make me feel better," Casey explained.

"You mean you _never_ told her?" Kelly asked.

"That was the beginning of our communication problems," Matt told him as he turned his head and buried half his face in the pillow.

Kelly sighed and moved his hand from Casey's waist up to the top of his head and softly gripped it, "I'm so sorry about all of this, Casey, I never thought about how bad this would be for you. None of this is your fault, there wasn't anything you could do-"

He was mildly shocked when he felt the body against him starting to vibrate and wrack as he heard the shallow sobs working their way up from Casey's throat. He draped his arm back around Matt's waist and held him tight as he broke down crying.

"I know, I know," Kelly said softly as he nudged Casey to face him, "come on, turn over, look at me."

It took a little coaxing but he finally got Matt to turn over towards him, and when he did he latched onto Kelly with one arm, between them Kelly felt something warm and fuzzy pressing against his chest and realized Matt was still holding onto the teddy bear. He reached around and patted Casey's back with both hands and told him, "I know, I know. This isn't your fault, Casey, there wasn't anything that anybody could do. You did everything you had to do, and you _saw_ the doctors doing everything they could...I know it doesn't help, but if everybody does everything they can and it still doesn't work, then it just wasn't meant to be, it was just her time, Casey, and you can't blame yourself for that."

Casey pressed his face tight against Kelly's collarbone and sobbed inconsolably. Kelly tightened his hold on Matt and let him cry himself to sleep, hoping that finally getting the demons he'd been holding onto all of these years _out_, would help him to recover.

* * *

Kelly opened his eyes and it took him a minute to remember why he and Casey were both in the same hospital bed and why Casey was cuddled against him with a teddy bear, but it came back to him and he started to wonder how long they'd been there. Was the hospital still on lockdown? Surely they hadn't just been forgotten, had they?

He got his answer when he heard a noise and saw the glass doors open and saw the guys from Squad, out of their Hazmat suits, entering the room. Using his free hand, he signaled for them to stop, and to be quiet, Casey's psyche had taken enough hits already, Kelly wasn't sure his dignity would survive this rude little surprise, though he definitely understood their morbid curiosity to find out what was going on. He saw their questioning looks and knew he'd have to explain it to them later, but he gestured for them to leave the room. As soon as he could leave Casey by himself he'd bring them up to speed on what had happened, but for now he didn't want Matt to know they'd been there.

Not getting it, but 'getting it', they nodded in silent response and left the room. Kelly heaved a sigh of relief when they were no longer in sight.

A few minutes later the doors opened again and this time it was Dr. Charles entering the room. Finally.

"What the hell happened?" Kelly whispered anxiously.

Keeping his voice low so not to disturb Matt, Dr. Charles explained, "Somebody brought a package to the hospital and left it at the front desk, there was a small explosion and a white substance leaked out. We took precautions that it might be anthrax, and that there might be more bombs, there weren't...and we finally got the results back that the substance was powdered sugar."

"What?" Kelly's eyes doubled in size.

Dr. Charles shook his head, "My guess, somebody who wanted to work the whole hospital up into a state of hysteria and see if they could actually pull it off. I've seen a lot of cases like that in my work. How have things been going here?"

Kelly glanced down at the man asleep beside him, still holding onto him, and he looked up at the psychiatrist and shook his head, "I really don't know."


	6. Chapter 6

"I'm not crazy," Casey told Dr. Charles later when it was just the two of them in the room.

"I know you're not, Matt," Daniel replied.

"I _know_ that there wasn't anything I could've done differently to change what happened to Maria Gonzalez. I also know that she and Maria Lauder aren't the same person. But..."

The psychiatrist didn't say anything, but Casey felt his eyes watching him, waiting for him to continue, and when he looked up he found his suspicions were right.

"We never forget anybody that we can't save, and it's especially worst to remember all the children...they never go away, you remember every one of their faces."

"I get that," Dr. Charles told him.

"I couldn't figure out why she had to die...why, when she survived the fire, and she was safe, why did it have to happen?" Casey asked.

"And why did you have to witness it?"

"Why did I pick _that_ time to go to the hospital?" Casey asked, more of himself than the doctor. "If I'd been a few minutes later...or if I'd just done what I was supposed to..."

"And what's that?"

"We get them to the hospital and we're supposed to leave it at that, you don't go back, you don't get involved in the aftermath," Casey explained.

"How many firemen tend to ignore that rule at one time or another?" Dr. Charles asked.

"All of us," Casey answered without missing a beat.

Daniel nodded.

"And you take all losses personally, correct?"

"It's hard not to," Casey replied. "We're supposed to _save_ people, and if we can't do that, if they die despite what we do, then we've failed."

"Do you truly believe that, Matt?" Dr. Charles asked him.

Casey was quiet for a minute.

"Matt?"

"Firefighters aren't supposed to fail."

It came out so suddenly, and half under his breath, it would've been easy to miss, but it wasn't missed by the psychiatrist.

"What's your definition of failing, Matt?" Dr. Charles inquired.

Casey looked down for a minute, and kept his eyes down as he answered, "If we go out on a call and we do less than everything we can, _that's_ failing."

"But that's not what happened, is it?"

Casey shook his head.

"It's not...but I couldn't accept that," he answered.

There was a pause between them before Daniel said, "I want you to tell me about Maria Lauder."

"What about her?"

"She's the one that gave you the teddy bear, right?"

Casey nodded. "I didn't think about it until after the fact, how similar the two calls were. Two families trapped in their homes, two girls named Maria, both born in the same year, it didn't occur to me until days later."

"But they were both very different too, weren't they?"

"Maria Gonzalez I jumped out of a first story window with. Maria Lauder was up on the second floor, we had to jump, the stairs were gone, there was no ladder...I felt something under me and I thought I'd crushed her to death."

"How long did you think that?"

"Days. I lost consciousness for a while, when I woke up in the hospital I thought that she was dead. Kelly said she was alive but I couldn't accept that, I didn't believe it. I was so sure...she just had to be..."

"And you thought that you had failed Maria Gonzalez _again_," Dr. Charles commented.

"I know how nuts it sounds," Casey said.

Daniel shook his head, "It doesn't, the similarities between the two and as high strung as you were at the time in light of what happened, it's perfectly understandable why you thought that."

He added, "I'm curious about why you kept the teddy bear she gave you."

Casey shrugged, "Just did."

"It would've been a constant reminder that she got out of that fire alive and alright, wouldn't it?" Dr. Charles asked.

Casey shrugged again, looking down at the blanket covering his legs.

"And possibly overtime the memories of the two girls overlapped."

Casey still didn't answer but he tilted his head further down.

"Maria Lauder entrusted her teddy bear to you, even though she wasn't going to take it back, possibly you felt some obligation towards her to keep it in the same condition it was in when she gave it to you?" Dr. Charles probed.

Casey wouldn't answer, but Daniel noticed he was starting to breathe a little heavier.

"Matt, can I ask you a personal question?" the doctor wanted to know. "Did you ever sleep with Maria's teddy bear?"

Casey looked up and his eyes shifted around, looking all around the room and towards the door as if making sure there wasn't anybody else in the room or about to enter who might hear their conversation. Only when he seemed satisfied that the two of them were alone did he reluctantly answer, "A few times."

"There's nothing wrong with that, Matt," the psychiatrist told him.

"For kids...women maybe," Casey scoffed.

"Can you tell me about those times?"

"No," Casey said firmly.

But Dr. Charles wasn't ready to leave it there.

"Were they particularly rough nights? Maybe the memories got to be too much? Maybe not _those_ specific memories, but just in general?"

Casey closed his eyes and slowly breathed in, it was obvious from the look on his face that he'd rather be anywhere else than doing this right now.

"Do I _really_ have to do this?" he asked as he opened his eyes.

"Unfortunately the only way we can determine what caused your breakdown, so as to avoid any additional ones, is to talk through it," Dr. Charles said. "It's obvious that you've been holding onto a lot over the years connected to these cases you worked. And in all that time, you never talked to _anyone_ about it? Not one of the other firemen, or a family member, spouse?"

Casey shook his head, "This isn't the kind of stuff you talk about over dinner at the end of the day."

"But other firemen, they see the same stuff on the job."

"And since they have, what point is there in talking to them about what they already know?" Casey replied.

"So you just keep it to yourself."

"Why not?" Casey shrugged, "it's all I've ever done. Why should this be any different?"

Dr. Charles nodded, and asked Matt, "Did you ever talk to it?"

Casey did a slow double take. "What?" Before the psychiatrist could repeat himself, Casey shook his head, "No, definitely not."

There was a pause before Daniel pushed further, "Did you ever talk to Maria?"

Casey's eyes narrowed down to hard slits, and Dr. Charles suspected he'd hit a nerve.

"Talking to people you lost is more common than you might think, Matt," Daniel said. "It's often an exercise in finding closure, people hang on to their unexpressed emotions, those last things they never got to tell someone, and sometimes they reach a point where they want it over with, so they talk to the person who's passed on, or write out a letter to them and get out everything on their chest. Did you ever talk to Maria, maybe apologize for not being able to save her?"

Dr. Charles saw Casey's jaws slowly clamp together as he started to shut down on the line of questioning.

"Nobody thinks that you played any role in her death, but it's obvious that your subconscious latched onto the idea and is having trouble letting go of it," he explained.

"I _want_ to let go of it," Casey admitted suddenly. "But I don't know how. I've tried, I've _tried_ to accept what happened and that there wasn't anything anybody could do, and I can't. I just can't." A few dry sobs worked loose before Casey dropped his head to his chest and the tears came. "A child that young...it shouldn't have happened."

Casey pulled himself back together after a couple of minutes but he kept his gaze down, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Matt, anybody who works in the medical field understands your frustration. I've seen it plenty of times with patients, I did everything I could to help them and I thought they were on the right road and genuinely getting better...then I get the call...one of them jumped out of a window, swallowed a bottle of pills, walked out in traffic, hanged themselves with a belt, and I go back over every case and try to figure out what I missed, what I could've done different. And a lot of them _are_ kids, Matt. They definitely _are_ the worst cases, you're right about never forgetting the faces."

Casey looked at him, and after a few seconds he told Dr. Charles, "I don't want to have to come back here again...I don't want to go through another breakdown."

"I understand that, that's what we're trying to figure out now," Daniel told him. "To prevent that from happening we need to talk through the issues that led to this breakdown."

"How do I do that?" Casey asked. "I _know_ all the details from what happened back then, I _know_ why everything that's happened since affects me like it does...I _don't_ know how to get past it, if I already know everything about it, what's there to work through?"

"Sometimes it's not what you don't know, it's just being able to get it out in the open and look at it from a different angle," Dr. Charles told him. "Ideally I'd recommend you start therapy sessions to work through these issues."

Casey shook his head, "No, I don't want to do that."

"I understand your hesitation, Matt, but therapy really isn't as bad as people think it is," Daniel said.

Matt looked to the side and insisted, "I don't care, I don't want to."

"Even if it brings you closure?"

"What's closure?"

Casey turned and looked at the psychiatrist and asked him, "Really, what is it? Whatever it is, I don't think it's existed for _any_ of the people we lost on calls. They never leave you, and it never gets any easier. So, what good _is_ closure?"

Again Dr. Charles somberly nodded and told him, "Believe me, I understand, more than you can imagine. But, working in the field you do, you know as well as I do that there's a difference in carrying them with you every day, and letting them hold you down so you can't go on and function in your life."

Casey glanced down again, but Daniel would've sworn he could make out just the faintest nod.

"This is not who you are, Matt, you know that. And you also know there are a lot of people at 51 who are worried about you, and who are counting on you. You have to be able to be there for them as much as for yourself. _That's_ why it's necessary."

Casey looked at him again.

"I guess it makes sense," Matt responded, "But I'm still not sure about _this_."

"Most people _are_ hesitant to consider psychiatric treatment," Dr. Charles told him. "There's still something of a stigma attached to it."

"I'll..." Casey swallowed, "I'll think about it."

Dr. Charles nodded, "That's the first big step."

"Oh," Casey thought of something and pushed back the blanket to reveal the teddy bear, "I guess you can give this back to your volunteer program now, give it to someone else."

Daniel looked at the stuffed animal and replied, "Actually, Matt, why don't you hang on to it? It's been my experience that these things tend to somehow form their own bond with the people they're assigned to. Each one is carefully selected to best suit the person who gets it. Who knows? You might be surprised."

Casey wasn't sure, but he figured humoring the doctor would be a good first step to getting out of there, so he finally agreed with a small shrug of his shoulders, "Okay...so now what?"

* * *

"Why do I have to stay here another night?" Casey asked.

"Probably just a precaution," Kelly answered as he made himself at home on the second bed, "so how're you feeling?"

"Annoyed, I feel fine, I want to go home," Casey said.

"I get it, buddy, but this is one time I think we need to listen to what the doc's saying," Kelly told him.

"Yeah," Casey grumbled as he folded his arms against his chest, "Therapy...you think it actually works?"

Kelly shrugged, "Can't hurt, can it?"

"I don't know. I just know I don't want to do it," Casey said. "Don't say it, I've already gotten that lecture from Dr. Charles, I spend all my time trying to not think about it and all I do is think about it all the time."

"Hey, we've all been there," Kelly replied, "if it actually helps..."

He didn't finish the sentence, but Casey knew what the sentiment was behind it.

"Yeah," he quietly agreed. After a pause he added, "I want to go home, Kelly."

"I know."

"I want to...close my eyes at night and _not_ see Maria's body on the operating table, not wake up screaming, thinking it's still that day."

Kelly solemnly nodded, "I know, Casey."

Casey sighed and said with much reluctance, "Kelly-"

"On my way," Kelly got up from his bed and stepped over to Casey's and squeezed into it beside him.

"I'm sorry," Casey said quietly.

"It's okay."

Casey sighed again and looked at Kelly and told him, "Thank you."

Severide patted him on the back of the head and told him, "You're okay, just go to sleep."


	7. Chapter 7

Kelly opened his eyes. It was dark in the room, still night but he didn't know what time it was. It seemed like it was taking forever for morning to come. Casey lay against him with his face pressed against Kelly's shoulder, he thought the blonde lieutenant was asleep, then he heard Casey murmur something, but it was too muffled for him to understand.

"What?" Kelly asked, "what'd you say, Casey?"

Matt pulled his head back and told Kelly, "Dr. Charles asked me...if I ever talk to Maria."

Kelly's eyes moved to their corners to look at Matt without turning his head. "Do you?"

"What good would it do?" Casey asked hopelessly.

"That's not really an answer," Kelly pointed out.

He felt a vise grip on his arm as Casey grabbed his bicep with both hands and clenched it as he started crying again. Kelly reached his free arm over and rubbed Casey's back. "What is it, buddy?"

It took a long time for Casey to get the words out around the tears and the hyperventilating sobs, but from what Kelly could piece together, Casey had spent a lot of time over the years, not merely talking to Maria, but apologizing for not being able to save her, and begging for her forgiveness. Kelly felt his own eyes burning with tears that were threatening to build up and spill through when he heard it, he hugged Casey tighter against him and waited for his friend to finally calm down.

He didn't know when it happened but Casey finally seemed to run out of energy, he leaned against Kelly, his breathing slowing down, a few faint sobs breaking through every now and then, but overall a much calmer sight than he had been a few minutes earlier.

But Kelly wasn't about to let him just sleep it off. He nudged Matt and told him, "Come on, Casey, get up."

"Where' we going?" he weakly asked.

"To the bathroom."

Casey pulled back and told him, "You can do that by yourself."

"Come on," Kelly grabbed him by the arm and didn't give him a choice.

In the bathroom Kelly ran a washrag under the cold tap and dabbed the cloth against Casey's tear streaked face.

"Casey, none of us ever forget the kids we can't save," Kelly told him.

"But this is different," Matt replied. "I _know_ that this is crippling my ability to do my job, to even get out of this hospital, but I don't want to go to therapy, I don't want to talk to the doctors."

"I can understand that," Kelly said, "but I think you need to."

"Why? What can they tell me that I don't already know?" Casey asked.

Kelly sighed. "Matt, when I was in rehab for those painkillers, I had to talk to a shrink, I felt the same way you do, and I hated it, but I had to do it, I wouldn't have been able to come back to 51 if I didn't complete the program. It sucks, but it's all connected."

Casey shook his head, "I don't want to do it."

"Explain it to me," Kelly said. "Why're you fighting this so hard?"

"I can't relive all of that, and to tell someone else about it all? I can't do it," Casey said.

"You've told me, you've told Dr. Charles, you can do it again," Kelly told him.

Casey jeered, "Yeah that'll be fun, every time I talk about it I start crying again and I can't stop."

"Hey, been there too," Kelly replied. "It gets better."

"It's been 7 years, Kelly," Casey told him quietly, "It hasn't gotten any better."

"Not yet, you didn't have anybody helping you get through it," Severide pointed out. "You do now."

Casey sniffed, and snorted cynically, "Oh yeah? You gonna be there and pick me up after each session when I'm too much of an emotional wreck to even drive myself home? Are you going to stay with me every night when the nightmares start and I flash back to that day?"

"If that's what it takes, then I will," Kelly said simply but firmly.

Casey's eyes glazed over with fresh tears and his voice broke as he asked, "You'd seriously do that?"

"I'm here now, aren't I?" Kelly asked.

Casey blinked, one tear rolled down his face, he reached over and just about collapsed against Kelly as he clutched two handfuls of the collar of his T-shirt and choked out, "Thank you..."

Kelly put his arms around Casey and hugged him tight and told him, "It's gonna be alright, we're gonna figure this out." He pulled back and wiped the tears away trailing down his face and told him, "Come on, let's go back to bed, you need to sleep."

They left the bathroom and Casey crawled back into his bed and something caught his eye. The teddy bear was on the floor, and he was half tempted to leave it there and pretend it didn't exist. But for some reason he found himself reaching over the side and grabbing it. He felt Kelly's eyes boring into him and tried to think of what to say to make any sense of it.

"I tried to give this back to Dr. Charles," he explained as he rolled over and faced Severide. "Told him to give it to somebody else, but...he was persistent I keep it."

"Well it _has_ helped you sleep the past few days," Kelly noted. "It's strange though."

Casey absently twisted one of the paws in his hand as he came to the same conclusion Kelly did, "How he knew it would help, before he even found out about Maria's teddy bear."

"Before I got out of here and found it in the washing machine," Kelly added.

"How _did_ he know that?" Casey asked.

Kelly shrugged, "Who knows?"

"Did you say anything to him?" Casey asked.

"How could I? I didn't know about Maria's bear," Kelly said.

"It doesn't make sense," Matt said.

"Well he did say after your breakdown that you were operating on the level of about a 7 year old," Kelly told him. "It was probably just a natural assumption, kids like stuffed animals."

"But then why keep it now?" Casey wanted to know.

Kelly got up from his bed and crossed over to Casey's and sat down beside him, "I don't know...but I don't think there's any harm in trying it one more night and see if it helps."

Casey lay on his side and glanced at the toy through the corner of his eye, self consciously he asked Kelly, without turning to face him, "You don't think it's stupid?"

Kelly didn't want to say he thought that that stuffed animal had become Casey's lifeline over the last few days, even though he firmly believed it was the only thing keeping Casey in his 7-year-old regression, sane and functioning. Maybe, somehow, it had even played a role in his return to the here and now.

Instead he just shook his head and told him, "Nah, I don't."

Casey still wasn't sure but he reluctantly found himself actually hugging the bear against his chest.

Kelly reached his arms around Casey's chest, and also felt something furry tickling his wrists, he realized it was the bear. He held his best friend close and commented, "Hey, this is actually pretty nice."

"Shut up," Casey told him.

"Sorry," Kelly replied, unable to resist the small smirk on his face.

There was a pause between them before Casey said to him, "So...how bad was it?"

"How bad was what?" Kelly asked.

"Me...during the...regression...how bad did things get?" Casey wanted to know.

Kelly shook his head somberly, "I don't know, I didn't get there until...probably hours after it happened."

"What was I like?" Casey asked, more than a hint of self consciousness present in his tone.

"Oh...about the same," Kelly answered, "Very serious, very literal...a little cuter when you slept."

Despite himself, Casey laughed.

* * *

Kelly was gone when Casey woke up the next morning. He rolled over and looked to the other bed, it was empty. Not just empty, there was no sign Kelly had even been there. Casey looked around the room, hoping he was wrong, but there wasn't anything left that suggested Severide had ever been in that hospital room.

Why not? Casey heaved a deep sigh. It wasn't like he _had_ to stay anymore. Casey was past the regression now, he knew where he was, he knew when it was, what did Kelly have to stick around for now? He supposed he couldn't blame Severide for leaving, but he did resent it, the least he could've done was wait until Casey woke up and tell him he was leaving.

But why should he? They _just_ worked together, it's not like Kelly was his keeper, or vice versa. Kelly had a life, and it didn't revolve around Casey and whatever he was going through.

Even though he could see the sun coming up outside, Casey felt drained of any energy he had to get up, so he just sank back against the mattress. The teddy bear was laying face down on the edge of the bed, almost completely forgotten.

Casey looked at it for a minute. He knew it was stupid, he knew it was childish, he didn't care. He was alone and he didn't understand why and he hated it. He reached over and grabbed the stuffed animal and held it close, feeling every bit like an abandoned child and hating himself for it. He closed his eyes and tried to push it all away, and in time he fell back asleep.

* * *

It was later in the morning when Casey woke up again. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, and it took a few seconds for him to remember where he was. He rolled over and felt a lump under his back, he reached under him and pulled out the teddy bear and stuffed it behind his pillow. He closed his eyes and shook his head trying to figure out what he was going to do now.

He heard the door sliding open and heard a young voice call out, "Matt Casey?"

He opened one eye, then the other, and saw a young girl standing in the doorway. She looked somewhere between 10 or 12, he couldn't be sure, dressed in a pink shirt and blue jeans and with dark hair that came down to her shoulders.

Matt wasn't sure if this was real or if he was hallucinating, since _when_ did they let children into the psyche ward? Where were this girl's parents?

He sat up in the bed to get a better look at her, slowly she inched her way into the room.

"Yes?" he asked.

She looked at him for a few seconds, then asked, "You don't remember me, do you?"

He looked at her, and tried to think. Then suddenly it hit him. No, it couldn't be.

"Oh...my God," he said as it finally clicked. "Maria."

The girl nodded.

After four years she had changed tremendously but Casey remembered her face clear as day now, Maria Lauder.

Casey threw back the sheet and all but jumped out of the bed and in two steps he picked the girl up in disbelief.

"Oh my God," he said, "look how much you've grown. What're you doing here?"

"Matt..."

Casey turned and saw Dr. Charles standing in the doorway.

"Dr. Charles," he said as he put Maria down, "What's going on?"

The psychiatrist looked at him and explained, "I thought you'd like to meet the head of our volunteer program."

"What?" Casey wasn't getting what the doctor was saying.

"The teddy bear I brought in," Dr. Charles pointed towards the bed, "This was Maria's idea."

Casey shook his head and did a double take, and repeated, "What?"

Daniel nodded and looked to Maria and asked her, "Why don't you show him?"

"Okay," Maria stepped out of the room and returned a few seconds later pulling a wagon full of various stuffed animals of all shapes, sizes and colors.

"As I was trying to explain the other day," Dr. Charles told Casey, "Maria comes to the hospital and hands these out to the adult patients who are here with no family. For obvious security reasons we don't generally allow children in the psyche ward, so I personally delivered this one for her myself, but I thought today we could make a...closely supervised exception given the situation."

Casey was still in shock and slowly taking all this in as he looked from Dr. Charles to Maria. The little girl stood beside the wagon and told Casey, "I got the idea after I gave you my teddy bear after you got me out of the fire. I asked my mom where your parents were and she said you were here alone...nobody should be alone in a hospital."

Casey felt a mixture of emotions and he struggled to keep the smile on his face as he responded, "That's definitely true." It started to disappear as he regretfully told the little girl, "I'm afraid that your teddy bear had...an accident in the washer and...was...destroyed."

Whatever he was expecting from Maria when she found this out, he didn't see it, the girl merely shrugged her shoulders and said, "It was old anyway. Now you have a new one."

He looked back to the bed and saw part of the stuffed toy sticking out from behind the pillow. Suddenly it all made sense. He turned to Dr. Charles and asked him, "That's why you wouldn't take it back?"

"I had a feeling you might change your mind once you knew the full story, but I also knew it wouldn't be right to come from anybody but Maria herself," Daniel answered.

"But...how did you know?" Casey asked.

"I didn't, not until Kelly told me about the two Marias," Dr. Charles answered.

"But you brought it here before that, how'd you know?" Matt asked.

Dr. Charles repeated, "I didn't," and added, "I just thought it would be beneficial given your state of mind at the time. But once Kelly found Maria's teddy bear and filled in the blanks, I put it together."

Casey was having a hard time taking all of this in and he fell back on the bed before he collapsed entirely.

* * *

Kelly had filled Boden in on some of the details of what was going on, and though it had been advised he take the shift off to be there for Casey, he decided he needed to swing by 51 to settle something from the other day. As he walked up the apparatus floor he saw the Squad table engaged in a poker game that quickly grinded to a halt when everybody saw him coming.

There were no usual greetings exchanged, but a heavy silence as he headed over to the others. He was well aware all eyes were on him, and everybody was just waiting.

Finally it was Tony that broke the silence. "So what was that yesterday, Kelly?"

"Yeah, what's going on?"

It wasn't exactly how he'd planned for this to open up, but there it was, so he jumped into it.

"Do you remember that house fire four years ago when Casey jumped out the window with the little girl and he was knocked unconscious?"

"Yeah?"

"And you remember three years before that when he got that other girl out of the house fire, and she died during heart surgery three days later?"

"Yeah, so?"

Severide looked at his men. This was harder to do than he'd thought it would be.

"Casey had a nervous breakdown and he's been in the psyche ward at Med for the past week."

"What?" Tony asked in disbelief.

"The doctor said the memories of the two cases overlapped and it was too much for him," Kelly explained. "He's...better now, he'll be able to come back to shift soon, but...right now he's still recovering...I was in to see him yesterday when the hospital went on lockdown."

Capp blinked. "Oh man."

"I want to make it clear when he _does_ come back, nobody's to say a word of this to him, got it?" Kelly ordered more than asked.

"No problem, Kelly," Tony responded, "but are you _sure_ he's going to be able to come back?"

He was sincerely hoping anyway. Doctor Charles hadn't said anything about Casey _not_ being able to return to work, that had to mean something.


End file.
